Tabletop sweeteners are used widely in the food and beverage industries. Tabletop sweeteners commonly are found in packet form, solid form, and liquid form, and can be used for sweetening numerous food and beverage compositions. Historically, both caloric and non-caloric or low-caloric, natural and synthetic tabletop sweetener compositions are available widely to consumers. Tabletop sweeteners, among other functions, allow consumers the option to customize a beverage or food product according to their individual tastes. This ability to customize food or beverage products becomes more important with increased health awareness and sedentary lifestyles. Although natural caloric tabletop sweetener compositions such as sucrose, fructose, and glucose provide the most desirable taste to consumers, they are caloric. Therefore, alternative non-caloric or low-caloric sweeteners have been used widely as sugar or sucrose substitutes. However, these sucrose substitutes (e.g., saccharin, aspartame, and sucralose) possess taste characteristic different than that of sugar, and exhibit undesirable taste characteristics such as sweetness linger, delayed sweetness onset, and non-sugar like aftertastes.
In general, because some sucrose substitutes (e.g., high-potency sweeteners) provide greater sweetening capacity than sugar, smaller amounts of the sweeteners will provide sweetening intensities equivalent to larger amounts of sugar. Thus, tabletop sweeteners require a product with a sugar-like taste and uniform sweetness. Where a sweetener has a potency significantly greater than that of sugar, the tabletop sweetener generally comprises one or more agents to add to the bulk of the tabletop sweetener product. Such products generally dissolve quickly and have tastes which improve or do not interfere with the taste of the high-potency sweetener.
Thus, there is need to provide a non-caloric or low-caloric tabletop sweetener composition with a more sugar-like taste. Natural high-potency sweeteners, such as rebaudioside A, rebaudioside B, rebaudioside C, rebaudioside D, rebaudioside E, rebaudioside F, dulcoside A, dulcoside B, rubusoside, stevia, stevioside, mogroside IV, mogroside V, Luo Han Guo sweetener, siamenoside, monatin and its salts (monatin SS, RR, RS, SR), curculin, glycyrrhizic acid and its salts, thaumatin, monellin, mabinlin, brazzein, hernandulcin, phyllodulcin, glycyphyllin, phloridzin, trilobatin, baiyunoside, osladin, polypodoside A, pterocaryoside A, pterocaryoside B, mukurozioside, phlomisoside I, periandrin I, abrusoside A, and cyclocarioside I generally are non-caloric; however, they exhibit sweet tastes that have different temporal profiles, maximal responses, flavor profiles, mouthfeels, and/or adaptation behaviors than that of sugar. For example, the sweet tastes of natural high-potency sweeteners are slower in onset and longer in duration than the sweet taste produced by sugar and thus change the taste balance of a food composition. Because of these differences, use of a natural high-potency sweetener to replace a bulk sweetener, such as sugar, in a food or beverage, causes an unbalanced temporal profile and/or flavor profile. If the taste profile of natural high-potency sweeteners could be modified to impart specific desired taste characteristics to be more sugar-like, tabletop sweeteners comprising natural high-potency non-caloric or low-caloric sweeteners could be provided to replace caloric sweeteners. Accordingly, it would be desirable to selectively modify the taste characteristics of natural high-potency sweeteners.
Thus, there is a need to provide a tabletop sweetener composition comprising non-caloric or low-caloric natural high-potency sweeteners and methods thereof. There is an additional need in the art to provide a tabletop sweetener composition comprising non-caloric or low-caloric natural high-potency sweeteners with a more sugar-like taste and methods thereof.